We are all the same

   This past weekend i was looking up the results of the IRL race. I didn't get a chance to watch the race so I wanted to see what all happened. Looking through I saw the Simona DeSilvestro finished fourth. A greqat run for her in only her second year. But as I read some of the comments one really got to me. It read something along the lines of "It was a good finish for a girl." What does her being female have to do with her great run for one of the underdog teams. This is an issue that I just don't understand. Why in the racing world and in the tuning world is the issue of gender a big deal? I personaly think it is great that there are women who are in the tuning scene and racing. If someone is passionate about building cars, racing cars or any way they express there love for cars, it should not matter their gender.

  Racing has seen an influx of female drivers. In the IRL you have several drivers in the series or on the verge of breaking in the series. Most all know Danica Patrick but also Simona, Pippa Mann and Katherine Legg. All have shown the deserve to be in the series and are very competitive. But you always hear negative remarks because of their gender. Granted it it becoming a smaller minority but they are usually the most vocal. Thankfully like i said thisis becoming more of a minority. Look at the NHRA where some the most popular drivers are women. Ashley Force Hood, Hillary Wiil, Erica Enders and Melanie Torxel (please forgive me if i spelled your name wrong) are round and event winners. You also dont hear a lot of the negative remarks you would hear form some IRL and NASCAR fans. Maybe oneday all fans can be more like the NHRA fans.

  I also remeber a few months back i saw an editorial in which the editor of a certain magazine disscused women ib the scene. His point was he did not want a girfriend that was into cars. Saying it was it his time alone in the garage and he didnt want for his girlfriend in there. I donmt understand this logic. I know people like to have alone time. But me personaly I would love to have a girlfriend that is into working on cars. I think it would be an excellent bonding time. Plus I don't get the whole macho I have to know more about cars than girls. If I meet someone that knows more about cars than me, wether it be male or female, I love to learn from them. The import cultrue also gives a great mix of females in the industry. Everthing from drag racing, road racing, drift, car show and models.

  I have been into cars and racing my whole life. I am one who knows how much time and dedication it takes to be sucessful. It should never matter on gender or color of skin how we precive someone. We should celbrate the sucess of people in the industry. I know for me personally I would love if my daugther or nieces of future girlfriend gets involved in cars or racing. I am still hopeful to find that right lady.

ALMS: Sebring

  The season opner for the ALMS was this past weeknd. The 12 Hours of Sebring is th first race of the season. This year was promised to have better racing with new regulations. The reason is to keep the cars closer together in the resective classes. This year did not disapoint. In the previous year the desiels of Audi and Puegot have dominated when racing in the ALMS. They usually run in the ILMS series in Europe and come to America for a couple of races. This year saw a surprise overall winner and winner in the LMP1 category as the OrecaP Puegot took the win. Oreca has long supplied chasis in Sportscar racing and this was a big win for the company. It was also a widely celebrated victory in the paddock area. The second place car overall and in LMP1 was the Highcroft HPD car. Highcroft has been of the most dominate teams in the ALMS, winning the last two overall championships. This was a huge step for the beating both the factory Audi and Puegot teams. This was also a huge step for Honda as they were able to run with the desiels.

  Honda also saw sucess in winning the LMP2 category. One of the stories I was most intersted in was the return of Nissan to sportscar racing. Nissan is suppling motors this year. THis is the first timein a couple of decades since Nissan raced in sportscar prototype racing. In the late 80's early 90's if you wanted to win in the IMSA series you had to beat Nissan and the prototype. A strong run in this years 12 Hours of Sebring hopefully will see more involment of Nissan in both the ALMS and the ILMS.

  The GT class saw the BMWs of Rahal Letterman racing sweep the top two spots of the podium. Followed by the Corvettes in third and fourth. Porsche and Ferrari both had off days with mecahnical problems and accidents. The GT class always has the closet racing and with strong teams from BMW, Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari and Jaguar this should be a very exciting season for GT racing. 

  I am looking forward to the rest of the ALMS season. I think this year will be a close action packed season. Can Highcroft win a third straight championship or will Muscle Milk or other teams step up and take the title? Plus the excitment that is the GT class. This could go down as one of the best seasons of the ALMS.

Your Ride Your Style

For today's lesson we will be looking at orginality in the tuning scene. You have just picked up your next project. For most of us we have allready researched every part we want to put on our car. Everything from motor, body, chasis and interior has been througlhy gone over. For alot of us though we don't have the funds to build our draem car. So what do we do? This leads you with three main options buy used parts, save until you can afford the patrs you want or buy cheaper versions "knock offs". If you go with the used part route you have to be careful. You never know what condition the parts are in. Research is your best friend here. Make sure you check on the seller's ratings. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Remeber it is buyer beware. Your next option is to save and wait to get the parts you want. With this though it might take you months or even years to save up for. What can happen is newer parts come out that you want or the parts you want become discontinued. But if you do save up and are paitent you will get the results you want. That brings us the last option buying knock offs. This can be easiest option but also carries the biggest risk. As they say you get what you pay for. The quality of the product may not be the greatest and has a lot of risk to put on your car. However you go about it you start to build the ride the way you want. Build it in your image.
After the process of building your ride you now want to show everyone the end results of all your hard work. You either begin buy posting pics of your ride on car forums or you take it to car shows and meets. You wait to see what people will say about your ride. For the most part you hear positive feed back. You will get a lot of good jobs or looking goods. But then you finally hear it or see it posted online. Someone ridicules your ride. They say it isn't JDM enough or make fun of the color, wheels or what you have done to the engine. They will nitpick every little detail to death. They will claim they are an expert and they know what it takes to build a proper ride. That if you don't listen to them your ride will always be made fun of. Mostly this will just be one indvidual. Sometimes though you will get a group of people telling you this. This will begin a mob mentality and you will be critized for everything. You begin to question why you even built the car in the first place. But then again who are you building the car for anyway? We are all guiltiy of it, we want to please the masses. We want to be praised for what we build. Remeber though this is YOUR car. You build the car the way you want. Don't just listen to everyone and how they say to build one. If you look at the most popular trends out there, they were started cause someone wanted to be diffrent. Someone dares to be diffrent. They know they will catch a lot of heat for doing it but they don't care. Then next thing you know someone will try it out. Then more people will try it. Next thing you know you have a trend. The JDM look started this way. As did wire tucks, low offset wheels, two tone engine bays and the "racecar" show look. If you really think about it that is how the whole import tuning scene started. The key to all of this is orginality. People dared to be diffrent. They did what others though was wrong. Anyone can look at a catalog and buy every part from a company. But then every car would look like a "catalog car". You would just take say a Honda and order every part from Mugen's or Spoon's catalog. Then though every Honda would look the same excpet for a diffrent color. What fun would that be? A world where every 240 is built to be a drift car, every Lexus a VIP car, every EVO a track car or every Honda a JDM, wire tucked, low off set clone. Not the world i wanna live in. To keep this from happening it is as simple as just being yourself. Do what you want and don't listen to the haters. The haters only talk cause they don't know how to be original. In the end everything comes down to you. Make the car the expression of what you want. When it is all said and done you can be proud knowing it is all yours. All the hard work will be worth it in the end.